Sneak Attacks on Rays

[kreynolds]

Give a real reason why you don't become visible after you have attacked, when that's exactly what the spell description states.

I believe I've had this argument with you before, and my reason is the same now as it was back then. You become visibile after your attack action, whether it be a standard attack or full attack. Conditions do not change in the middle of actions. They change before or after, but not during.

 

[AGGEMAM]

Surpise only applies when combat starts, before the first round.

Flat-footed only applies during the first round of combat, before your first action.

They never apply at any other time.

Therein we disagree.

Flat-footed is the effect of being surprised in the first round of combat, being caught of guard.

Surprise can happen at any time during combat, when a defender is unaware of the attacker, usually from attacking from a hidden position or being invisible.

That is how I see it, and I have not found anything in the rules so far that goes against it.

 

[Petrosian]

[/B][/QUOTE]

It's not a myth, it's a fact. You are biased.

yes i am biased. When i run math and SEE a result in cold hard numbers, I tend to believe it.

Melee foes are not always highly armored creatures.

Ok lets try this slowly. Against non-armored foes, a rogue will not use his "works good against armored guys" tricks. Against non-armored foes, he will use his "works good against non-armored foes tricks. "

Keep up. buying the wand did not cost the rogue his swords and bows, just 375 gold. Against foes where the wand is not a good choice he will use those.

The whole point of this thread is that the 375 gold wand against heavy armor foes is too good too cheap and way too easy.

Besides, after you take into account stuff like Weapon Finesse, Cat's Grace/Gloves of Dex (having a +7 dex bonus is overkill to the touch attack, but not with a dagger), and other minmaxed stuff, the difference in the attack roll can be marginalized quite a bit, which lessens even more when you consider eventually making 5 or 6 attack rolls vs. just one (add another to that 5 or 6 if you want to include haste). Not to mention a few cool items in MoF, like the Mask that gives you a bite attack (another potential sneak attack) and the dagger that acts as a Chill Touch (NASTY rogue weapon). That last one (a weapon my pc would like) should make a few of you wince in pain. A full attack action using touch attacks + sneak attacks (assuming the conditions were met)!

Ok well lets see if i can work thru this mess.

First, I counted finesse.

Second, i worked with a 20 dex for a 10th level rogue. That seemed reasonable. If you take a sec and look at the "representatives of their race and class" iconic PCs from WOTC you will see that their 10th level HALFLING rogue has a 21 dex.

Now maybe in your games this 20 dex is more appropros for 2nd level and by 10th we should expect dexs of 36 or so, but i am not using your house escalations for general discussion. Clearly a campaign with escalated stats way beyond those given as "representative" will likely produce different results.

Third, adding haste into the picture? OK fine you got it. Haste adds one more swing to the already 3 swings for the brawler or bowman. it adds another ray to the other side. The ray guy DOUBLES his offense with a haste, the brawler/bowman increases it by less than a third. (it would help if you guys at least did some math, just a little, before making claims based on faith or wishes.)

Fourth: i was not assuming we were in the realms. If you wish to limit your argument to just that one setting, thats your choice.

Fifth, about allowing all sorts of wonderful magic items. i used significantly less money to buy items for the opposition. With defenses cheaper than offenses, deciding to need to have much more magic items to support your false religion is probably gonna get you no where. You will notice i am also only spending the 375 gold for the lowest power wand. Consider what a wand of twinned ray of frost, a wand of repeating ray of frost, and their ilk would do.

but enough of that silliness.

I play a mc'ed rogue/wizard/fighter/ranger/temple raider (please, no ignorant munchkin comments...unless you've played in our campaign and read his background, you haven't a clue)

Actually i am getting clues, right left and sideways. They practically seep from every sentence.

myself, who is geared towards melee/flanking. Sure, I've used Ray of Frost a few times, but it is NEVER as effective as melee is. At 12th level, I get 4 attacks/round with my ring of blinking and Expert Tactician. By 15th level, he'll take ITWF and gain another iterative attack, for a grand total of 6 attacks, 7 if hasted. 8 if I get that Fanged Mask doohickey. Oh, and most of these are at my highest BAB, minus 2. However, our party fights non-crittable foes all the time, so I probably only get to sneak attack 25% of the time. Maybe even less than that. So, a great deal of the time, I am just rolling (and rolling and rolling...) a LOT for the miss chances and attack rolls, and all I get for that (right now) is a possible (1d4+str+weapon enhancement)X4. Also, I've lost out on a lot of skill points, which the party never ceases to rag me on. I ASSURE you, I'd rather take my chances on the 20% miss chance, AND the 3 or 4 attack rolls I'll get, than fire off one Ray of Frost. I have good hitpoints too; like I said, he's good in melee. I just wouldn't waste my time with the Ray Wand. I pull it out against fire creatures sometimes, but even then I am often more effective just going into melee. That Chill Touch dagger might be a bit too good, but that's easily bannable as a house rule. Anyway, this a little bit of personal experience of playing a wizard/rogue/fighter type over 12 levels. If my pc was more geared towards missile fire, then he'd be better off taking 4 or 6 bowshots imo. YMMV.

I really do not have much to say, except that, maybe perhaps just a little your specific campaign oddities, your campaign being so different that EVEN YOU SAY we would have no clue about it, might mean your results are a little off the norm.

I can readily admit that in a campaign scaled like you describe, the more typical results might not be applicable at all.

Here's the math for my pc: W/Cat's Grace, he usually has a +7 Dex bonus (could be +8 if 4 is rolled), +8/3 BAB, 2 +2 daggers, +2 flanking, +2 invisible/blinking...equals a +21 to hit. Also, sometimes the cleric will cast prayer/bless or something to boost that a bit higher. Let's assume a 30 AC here (10 from Fullplate +2, 4 from a Shield +2, +1 Dex, +3 Ring of Protection, +2 Amulet of Natural Armor). So, that's a touch AC of 14. My damage on an attack is 1d4 +2str+4d6SA=average 18.5. With the Ray, I can expect to do 1.75+14=15.75 damage, 14.875 on a successfull save.

Minor quibble number 1: the average damage of the ray is 2, not 1.75.

Minor quibble number 2: the assumption that someone else provides you with boosting spells.

Minor quibble number 3: you have defintiely upped the magic level for items while ignored easy and cheap ones. Your defender has over 40k in defensive items but not anything as simple as a haste potion? Clearly another campaign difference. In my game he would be AC 34/18t after adding in the lowly 750 gold for the potion or maybe even the 8k for boots of speed and lower the ring to +2 for a 33/17t.

I get 4 attacks on a full attack, at +19/19/19/14, vs. the +17 with the Ray of Frost.

As an aside, the full attack requires you to alrwady be in position, in my campaigns, full attacks are not guarantees. But we can proceed.

So, with the Ray, I can expect to do .95x15.75=14.9625, and 14.13125 if the save is made. With the daggers, it is more complicated.

I have a 50%/50%/50%/25% chance of hitting, but while blinking, these go down to 40/40/40/20%. So, I can expect to do:
.4x18.5x3 + .2x18.5 = 25.9. Now, add in crits, and this number increases much more in relation to criting with a ray. Correct me if my math is wrong, but this seems like a no-brainer to me. And, it only gets worse when I get more attacks. Granted, this is specific to my PC, but then, that's all that really matters now isn't it?

Yes of course, When discussing balance issues on a public forum campaign specific balances in a campaign you yorself say we will have no clue about should be the only things used.

With an argument like that, i am flumoxed.

Brief note, if we do add just a little haste potion, 750 gold vs the 40k etc you like to presume, your numbers turn into... 30/30/30/5 for something like 15 or so damage. Add a haste potion to both sides and the wand damage doubles (two shots) while yours goes up by about 6 for the extra swing.

So it seem the no brainer you are so happy with in your "classic" example is tossed asunder by just a 750 gold potion.... even after some 40k of toys.

Note, that we like high magic campaigns, so we probably have more than the listed treasure in the DMG. However, the monster's are that much nastier, so it balances out. \

Really? i never would have guessed. However, even as clueless as you think we are, i gotta say that i still expect you to understand that scaling like this might in some small way skew the relative effectiveness of various tactics?

For example, I scored that sweet ring of blinking after we barely managed to defeat a vampire with whirlwind attack who wore it and nearly killed our entire 7 member party single-handedly. We were about 7th level, maybe 8th.

Gosh... a vampire at 7th level pcs? Man i am so impressed, you campaign is sooo cool.

Now, the Arcane Trickster is a different story. Many feel that class is overpowered. I haven't actually read it, so I can only comment on what I've heard through the boards. It doesn't seem overly powerful to me to be able to cast a spell at 75% or so of the power of a normal wizard, just to get one (maybe 2) sneak attack(s) off. You can't cast as well as a wizard (never will), and you can't attack or use skills as well as a rogue. It's a neat combo, but doesn't seem to be too much. I could be wrong, as we have never playtested this class.

I fugure with +5 vorpal daggers and +5 bracers of armor and +5 necklace of natural armor and then some real serious gear he could probably come close in your games.

As for this rogue, he's gonna stick to daggers, hope, and good luck.

When in doubt, luck.

And Petrosian, in my example before, I was pointing out the weaknesses of sneak attack (touch or non-touch) to show that it isn't overpowered in ANY form.

Thanks, We all needed to know senak attack has weaknesses so we could compare the two sneak attacks.

That's quite relative to a discussion on the balance issue of a specific form of sneak attack. Also, I listed Dispel Magic to use against invisibility, NOT for use against a silly Ray (a wasted readied action). Also, there's another addition to the list, in Dust of Appearance. I'm sure many mid-high level fighters will be carrying around a pouch or 2 of this. Ok, I'm done.[crowd roars]

And we are all grateful.

Thank you for your clear and wonderfully on topic post.

We can now all add, as a given, except in whatshisnames type of campaign, to the remainder of our discussion.

You have done us such a great service, we will eternally be in your debt.

 

[AGGEMAM]

Petrosian,

did you remember to put into the equation that the rogue might fail his UMD check ?

 

[Petrosian]

Petrosian,

did you remember to put into the equation that the rogue might fail his UMD check ?

Why, i really dont know... what do you think?

i said...
"If we allow for a 15% UMD failure on top of that (need a 20, skill = 13 and +3 for cha = 16 so we fail on 1-3 only) this drops to 15.746... "

Of course, you could not have known this unless i took the time and trouble to write out my math... oh wait... i did.... AND you had bothered to take the time to actually read it instead of... nevermind. no longer worth the bother.

 

[Pielorinho]

yes i am biased. When i run math and SEE a result in cold hard numbers, I tend to believe it.

[six pages of text snipped]

Petrosian, I put this post into a word processor to see how long it was. Six pages for just this one post! No wonder ADD tweakers like myself don't read all the posts in an argument.

Carry on. Soul of wit, and all.
Daniel

 

[Caliban]

Therein we disagree.

Flat-footed is the effect of being surprised in the first round of combat, being caught of guard.

Surprise can happen at any time during combat, when a defender is unaware of the attacker, usually from attacking from a hidden position or being invisible.

That is how I see it, and I have not found anything in the rules so far that goes against it.

Find something that supports it. The rules only allow for suprise at the beginning of combat. It's called the suprise round, and there is absolutely no provision for it occuring at any other time.

 

[Caliban]

I believe I've had this argument with you before, and my reason is the same now as it was back then. You become visibile after your attack action, whether it be a standard attack or full attack.

If the spell said that I might agree, but it doesn't. It says you become visible when you attack, not "after you take your attack action".

Conditions do not change in the middle of actions. They change before or after, but not during.

Of course they do.

When you bluff someone, they only lose their Dex bonus on your next attack. Even if you have multiple attacks, only the first one would be a sneak attack.

If you trip someone with your first attack, they change from standing to prone before your next attack.

When you disarm someone, they become disarmed between your first and second attack.

According to your interpretation, none of those conditions would take effect until you were done with all your attacks.

 

[AGGEMAM]

Find something that supports it. The rules only allow for suprise at the beginning of combat. It's called the suprise round, and there is absolutely no provision for it occuring at any other time.

Find something that support your idea, and I'll be happy to agree with you .. but, hey, wait a minute .. you can't ..

 

[Petrosian]

Petrosian, I put this post into a word processor to see how long it was. Six pages for just this one post! No wonder ADD tweakers like myself don't read all the posts in an argument.

Carry on. Soul of wit, and all.
Daniel

Ok... another country heard from...

well, so far in this reasoned discussion we have...

"your math is wrong" followed by "show me where" and "ooops no you were right"

We have...

"you didn't use my own overpowered campaign examples which by my own admission you wouldn't have a clue about!!"

and now we have...

"you type too much for poor me to read"

in the face of these compelling and skillfully crafted arguments... i am hopelessly outclassed.

I yield the day to these champions of discourse.